Gym Jordan

So why is Jim Jordan, the leading Republican candidate for Speaker of the House, often called “Gym Jordan” by his critics?

Back before he was in congress, Jordan was a wrestling coach at Ohio State University. While there, at least 177 male students/athletes were sexually molested by the team doctor. Multiple men who were molested said that they told Jim Jordan about it and he turned a blind eye and did nothing. Others say his behavior was even worse and he knew about it and “begged” those who were molested to not report the guy. Jordan has also been accused of watching and doing nothing as the doctor masturbated in the locker room to the male athletes. Jordan denies having known about the molestation and says these stories are untrue.

So “Gym” Jordan is a reference to these activities. Apparently this kind of behavior nets you a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Because predators recognize their own, I guess.

— Badtux the Predator-spottin’ Penguin

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A Republican legislator turns out to be a child abuser. Gosh, and water is wet, eh?

Look at this turdball. This is Kentucky representative Mark Samsel, who was arrested on charges of misdemeanor battery on Thursday after going all Handmaiden’s Tale on multiple classrooms of students and getting upbrided by one of the students who objected to Samsel’s interjection of extremist Talibangelical beliefs into a public school classroom. Samsel then physically attacked the student.

Republican, of course. Duh.

What will it take to realize that Republican politicians of today are, by and large, odious people who at the least give lip service to hate and bigotry, and at worst are depraved child molesters and child abusers? This is the second Republican legislator arrested within the past two weeks for abusing a child. At least he did not rape this child like the other Republican legislator, but “merely” assaulted him.

And those eyes. That face. You just need to glance at this guy to realize that he’s more than a bit unhinged and not someone you want around children. I mean, he makes The Joker look sane. Yeesh.

– Badtux the “Ugh, just ugh” Penguin

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Republican culture is white supremacist conspiracy theories leading to violence

So we had:

• The MAGAbomber, sending letter bombs to prominent Democrats,
• A shooting at Kroger where a white supremacist apparently decided to start shooting black people,
• and a shooting at a Jewish synagogue where a white supremacist killed eleven people.

All within a week.

So I’ll drop this quote here:

“[These deaths] say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 18 September 1963
Birmingham, Ala.

What is the commonality between them all? All three murderers (or wanna be in the case of the MAGAbomber) subscribed to various right-wing conspiracy theories about Jews, Democrats, and black people.

Who is spreading these conspiracy theories? Is it a few nuts and cranks on the Internet? No, it is prominent Republicans, including top cabinet members and officers in our Federal government — including, of course, the President himself.

At which point we’re back to MLK Jr., who was responding to a church bombing that killed four little girls. The bombers were prominent KKK members who were also top officials in local law enforcement. MLK’s point was that if it was not these particular people, it would have been someone else who murdered civil rights workers, because the whole system of white supremacy was based upon violence against black people and their supporters.

At this point, I think we can say that the whole system of Republican supremacy is based upon violence against black people, Hispanic people, Democrats, Jews, and their supporters.

That is all.

– Badtux the Waiting-for-Kristallnacht Penguin

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So apparently Mad King Trump cannot be indicted and can pardon himself

At least, that’s what his lawyer Gooniani says, and what he has tweeted.

Methinks that Mad King Trump’s role model is this:

Except King Joffrey was less petulant.

Apparently “it’s not illegal if the President does it” has become the guiding principle of Republican rule. Huh. Why am I not surprised.

— Badtux the “Was he elected President, or King?” Penguin

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The week from hell

That was my week last week, thus the long delay. Yes, I’m still alive. Just very, very busy, between working long hours and writing the modern Russian novel.

It was the week from hell from the viewpoint of the country, too. President Dumpster Fire set off a trade war, apparently out of spite. Despite everybody from car makers to beer manufacturers telling him that his tariffs on aluminum will cause prices to go sky high and force them to move manufacturing out of the USA, he did it anyways — right after his close friend and former economic advisor Carl Icahn dumped his steel stocks.

This is the same Donald Trump who says he wants to be President for Life. Given his age and weight, let’s hope that life isn’t too long. Cheeto Mussolini, indeed.

Meanwhile, the Russia probe continues to swirl around the Orange Racist Russian Stooge. Former Trump Aide Sam Numberg says he’s going to defy the grand jury subpoena that he received. Hope he looks good in stripes! But in public comments on various news shows he said Trump’s close advisor Carter Page was colluding with the Russians and was a “scumbag” and a “weird dude”. And said well, he probably was going to cooperate anyhow, since he doesn’t look good in stripes. Ya think?

Meanwhile, Roy Moore says he needs donations because he spent all his money running for the Senate. Here, Roy, here’s my donation. I’m giving you back everything that you’ve given everybody else who needs money:

And, of course, conservatives have delayed a bill to prevent child marriage in Kentucky. Because being able to marry your neighbor’s 13 year old daughter that you got pregnant via rape is family values, not pedophilia. Can we just call them the Grand Old Pedophile party, now?

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Meatless steaks

There’s something about a meatless steak that’s just… wrong. These things have been created in a lab to fit an agenda — to taste like meat, to look like meat — but they’re not meat. They’re fake. They’re chemical concoctions made with protein extracts from various vegetables.

The Nunes memo reminds me of that. It promises to be a big juicy steak. Instead, it’s a huge nothing-burger concocted in a lab to meet an agenda. What it states, when you boil it down to its elements, is that the FBI followed normal investigative procedures when investigating reported money laundering, illegal lobbying, and espionage. Even the tip they followed to get a warrant to bug Carter Page — the Steele dossier — was more than enough to get a search warrant in any court in the nation.

At which point the partisan hacks say, “but what if the FBI was doing this to Hillary Clinton?” Well, if Hillary Clinton had a Russian money laundering ring being run out of one of her properties… if Hillary Clinton had close advisors on the Russian payroll… if some of Hillary Clinton’s advisors were illegally lobbying for a foreign government… I sure the hell hope the FBI would be investigating all of that. Because that’s their job. And if they don’t do their job, what’s the point of having them?

But I guess the fact that I want people to obey the law makes me a hopeless partisan hack… WTF?

– Badtux the “Where’s the beef?” Penguin

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So standard investigative procedures are evidence of a secret society, according to criminals. Go figure.

So apparently, according to a bunch of criminals who happen to be elected Republican officials (plus Alex Jones, can’t forget him), there is a “secret society” within the FBI intent upon investigating the President. The evidence? They hold meetings in secret.

They hold meetings in secret.

Like every other investigative team like, well, evah.

Because, look. If a police agency is investigating someone, they don’t want the suspects to know about it. They don’t want the suspects to know what evidence they’ve found thus far, or even that they’re under investigation. Because then the suspects could hide evidence or flee the country or otherwise make it impossible to gather the evidence needed to get an indictment.

So law enforcement teams investigating wrongdoing don’t hold meetings in the open saying “Hi everybody, we’re investigating Jon Doh on suspicion of money laundering, and here’s the evidence we have right now!”. No. That’s not how it’s done. They collect evidence in secret, and they hold meetings in secret to share the evidence with each other that each team member has gathered. Then once they have sufficient evidence, they take the evidence before a grand jury and get a criminal indictment. Only after there is an indictment is their evidence shared with the criminals (or more likely with the criminals’ lawyers since only a fool represents himself when charged with a criminal charge).

That’s how it’s *done*, and how it’s been done for the entire history of the FBI, and for the entire history of most big city police departments for that matter. It’s called standard investigative procedures. And it’s not evidence of a conspiracy. It’s evidence of a police agency operating the way it’s supposed to work.

Which is a problem, I suppose, if you’re a criminal politician and you’re worried that you might go to jail at the end of the investigation….

— Badtux the Law Enforcement Penguin

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Bill Clinton is not running for office

“Bill Clinton was a sexual predator!”

That was proven in 1999, after he’d won election twice. And your point is? Bill Clinton isn’t running for office, and if he were, I wouldn’t vote for him.

Meanwhile, a pedophile is running for office in Alabama against an experienced prosecutor who put two KKK leaders in prison for executing four little girls. That sounds like a no-brainer to me, but there’s still people who say it’s okay to vote for a known pedophile because Bill Clinton? In fact, the deplorables in Alabama seem likely to elect the pedophile. WTF?!

Look, I’ll admit that all these accusers against Roy Moore seem to have a common look: They’re all women. Which is surprising, because usually your anti-gay tighty righties are closeted gays who are gayer than the gay mayor of Gaytown, but ole’ Roy cruised the mall and restaurants looking for high school girls. But never fear, he never dated girls without their mother’s permission.

Which is creepy as fuck. A thirty-something-year-old man dating girls so young that they need their mother’s permission in order to date? SQUICK!

Well, for most of us. For Alabama, that’s apparently what passes as normal.

– Badtux the Squicked-out Penguin

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Scratch a tighty righty anti-gay zealot, uncover a pervert

The latest? Judge Roy Moore. Yeah, that Judge Roy Moore, the one with the 10 Commandments statue, the one who ordered county clerks to disobey the U.S. Supreme Court? Dude obsessed with gay sex, even more than most gay people I know?

Yeah, that Roy Moore, who apparently abused his position as an assistant district attorney to get close to a 14 year old girl and, eventually, boff her.

Not the only underage girl he had inappropriate contact (snrk) with either. So, how are Republicans reacting to finding out that their guy is a pervert?

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Moore backer: “Even if you accept the Washington Post’s report as being completely true, it’s much ado about very little. ”

So, uhm, how many parents of 14 year old girls are okay with a 32 year old adult man hitting on her? Hello? Helloooo?!

So how’s this playing out with the base? I asked my local Trumpanzee, who is the father of a little girl, and he was, like, “where were the parents?” And I replied “Her mother was in a courtroom. Moore was a district attorney and offered to watch the girl while her mother was in court.”

At which point he blew a fuse, sputtering “That’s abuse of power! That’s just wrong! He ought to be flayed alive in the public square! And kept alive and revived and flayed some more for years and years and years!” Uhm, yeah. Judge Roy’s base doesn’t seem to agree that a grown man is supposed to be hitting on 14 year old girls…

But never fear, Judge Moore will appear on live television, in tears, saying how he’d been a bad awful man when he was young but then he’d accepted Jesus Christ as his Personal Lord and Savior and had his sins Washed away in the Blood of the Lamb glory Hallelujah and was saved, saved I say, by the Blood of the Lamb. And the illiterate hicks and inbred cousin-fuckers of Alabama will elect him as their next senator, glory Hallelujah, AMEN.

So it goes.

– Badtux the Cynical Penguin

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People were talking about the hurricane rather than him, so President Trump had to pardon a bigot

I mean, look. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of torturing Hispanic people in his jails. Hundreds of Hispanic people hung themselves in his jails, basically tortured to death, costing Maricopa County bajillions of dollars. Then he defied a Federal court order to quit torturing them brown fellers, and got convicted of contempt of court for doing so.

So of course the Orange Racist Pussy Grabber pardoned him today.

It’s a twofer. Now people are talking about Trump, rather than about the hurricane. And, Trump lets all the racists, bigots, inbreds, Nazis, Klansmen, right-wing militiamen, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, muggers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Southern Baptists know that their God-Emperor Donald the Trump has their back.

Of course, it’s a travesty of justice, and a preview of how Trump intends to deal with the convictions from the Russia scandal, the grand jury for which is still underway. But justice isn’t something that His Fraudulency Donald The Trump ever cared about. He has a life-long history of bigotry against black people, a life-long history of ripping off his contractors, bankers, and anybody else he could get away with ripping off (thus his nickname in New York City banking circles of “Deadbeat Donnie”, which is why he’s so in debt to the Russians), a life-long history of treating women like objects and treating people of color like shit. This is what he does, people. He’s a two-bit con man playing big man in the Oval Office. A two bit con man who has access to nuclear weapons and a pardon pen.

Which is why we are all so, so fucked.

– Badtux the Waddling Penguin

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